Public land mobile networks (PLMNs) are networks established and operated by governments or operators authorized by the governments for the purpose of providing land mobile telecommunication services to the public. The PLMNs are usually interconnected with public switched telephone networks (PSTNs) to form a communication network of the whole area or whole country.
An identifier of the PLMN is generally a series of digital codes, for example, the PLMN network identifier of China Mobile is 46000, and the PLMN network identifier of China Unicom is 46001. Users can communicate conveniently and rapidly via mobile networks provided by operators. With the improvement of people's living standard, users carrying communication terminal devices to travel abroad or for business are becoming more and more. When roaming communication (for example, international roaming communication) is performed, a mobile communication terminal (for example, a mobile phone) of the user may need to perform network search to acquire the PLMN network identifier.
When the mobile communication terminal moves from a home to a visited place (for example, the mobile communication terminal moves from a home country to a visited country), the mobile communication terminal may need to access the PLMN of the current visited place. However, at present, what frequently occurs is that when the mobile communication terminal moves from a home to a visited place, the mobile communication terminal needs to take a long time (sometimes it may take a few minutes or more) to successfully access the PLMN of the current visited place, which affects user communication experience.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various examples of the present disclosure. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible example are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various examples. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required. It will also be understood that the terms and expressions used herein have the ordinary technical meaning as is accorded to such terms and expressions by persons skilled in the technical field as set forth above, except where different specific meanings have otherwise been set forth herein.